Post Tagged with: "outreach"

The overwhelming message to come out of the Royal Society of Chemistry’s study into the UK public’s perceptions of chemistry is that people just don’t know what it is chemists do. So in case you are stuck for ideas on how to spread the message here’s my top 6 ways to tackle #chemperceptions and get started with public engagement.

The Conversation is an ingenious collaboration between the media and academia. Any researcher (form post-grad to prof) in academia can write for them and professional editors work with you to craft your prose into something a lay audience will enjoy reading.

Your piece won’t get published until you are happy with it, so don’t worry about a journalist hacking your science to bits. But the thing that makes The Conversation so powerful is that anything you write can get republished under a creative commons non-derivative license. This means your article could end up being distributed by news outlets around the world. I’ve had stuff that started life on The Conversation end up in Scientific American,IFL science, The Hindu,The Guardianand more besides.

And you don’t have to write about your research, you can comment on a whole range of chemistry in the news (or even comics).

Famelab is a world-wide science communication competition. The idea is simple, you have 3 minutes to explain a complex piece of science with clarity, content and charisma (and no slides).

There are regional heats around the world, 27 national finals and an International final that takes place at the Cheltenham Science Festival. NASA and CERN also hold heats, in some countries the finals are televised and many participants have gone on to do greatthings in science communication (including writing for chemistry-blog 😉 )

This competition really is about taking part, its a fabulous way of getting involved in the science communication network in your country and the world.

This one’s really easy and low risk. Just pick up a bag of tricks and head out to the streets. If you find you don’t like it, just pack up and go home.

The nice thing is that you reach a really diverse audience, you’ll come into contact with people who haven’t engaged with science since school.

There’s masses of resources out there to get you started. Many of the tricks aren’t chemistry based, but that doesn’t matter. Once you get your audience’s attention you’ve broken the ice and can start talking to them about what it is you do during your day job.

There are tonnes of opportunities for scientist to get up in front of people and tell the audience about what we do. For example, I run a science cafe, where every month a scientist, engineer or mathematician speaks for 30 min to group in a pub. No slides, no pressure, just beer and an interested (and interesting) audience who are incredibly insightful about the science they have just heard about. On more than one occasion I’ve seen scientist get new ideas for their work from the audience.

5) Put on a family learning workshop.

Schools will bite your hand off if you offer them a free workshop or demo lecture. But in my experience you’ll have much more impact if you offer up a workshop for the whole family. Timetable it at pick-up time and then the interested kids will drag their parents along. This way the whole family gets involved and they are much more likely to follow up on it when they get home, especially if you provide them with some take-home resources, e.g. these kitchen chemistry comics (feel free to download and distribute).

I’ve had parent approach me after running this sort of thing to tell me that they really hadn’t wanted to come but in the end they’d had a great time!

6) Get someone else to do it for you!

I know you’re busy, you might have lectures to prepare, reports and papers to write, grants to review, columns to run. That’s fine!

So instead support your students, staff and lab techs to get involved. If you are in an education institution embed science communication into your teaching. Run projects for students that involve preparing public engagement activities. That way the next generation of chemists get used to communicating with the public and you get a team who do the public engagement stuff for you.

Some of my students made those kitchen chemistry comics, one has set up a very successful business running entertaining science communication activities and now she employs other students, and others developed workshops for science festivals or established science shows on regional TV.

One tip about what doesn’t always work well.

Bangs, explosions, smoke! I know it’s tempting to pull out all the stops and perform all those really impressive explosive demos. But use them sparingly. They play well to a certain audience but they also put many people off. And they reinforce the stereotype of chemistry being dangerous and destructive.

Soon after moving to Tallahassee my wife (Debbie) and I were encouraged to check out First Friday, an eclectic, once-a-month gathering of local musicians, artists, food trucks, and performers. Located in a lumber yard-turned-art park known as Railroad Square, First Friday is a wonderful opportunity to see locals celebrating their hobbies and personal interests. Following this spirit, Debbie and I, along with my colleague Greg Dudley, decided to contribute as well – and our Ask a Scientist (AaS) booth was born. We gather 4-5 scientists–predominantly FSU faculty—from across disciplines like chemistry, physics, engineering, psychology, medicine and biology and stand by a tent with a sign proclaiming Ask a Scientist. What follows is ~3 hours each month spent drinking beer and talking science with people passing by.

Below is a time-lapse of our August AaS event. The evening featured the following scientists: David Meckes (virology and biomedical sciences), Brian Miller (biochemistry), Tom Albrecht-Schmitt (nuclear chemistry), and myself (Ken Hanson, energy/material chemistry). We try to rotate a new batch of scientists every month.

There are four types of common interactions/questions:

1) Most people are genuinely excited to ask questions, many which are prompted by current events. Our virologist was asked about Ebola in August and our paleontologist was asked about the colossal dinosaur in September. Other examples of general questions include: How are memories formed? How accurate is the chemistry in Breaking Bad? And my personal favorite as a photophysical chemist: Why is the sky blue?

2) Some people interpret our “Ask a Scientist” prompt as, “Stump a Scientist.” At best these questions come from fellow scientists who good-naturedly know what is difficult to answer (like how do you cure x?). At worst, these questions come with sarcasm or a prepared (dare I say egotistical) lecture on what our answer missed.

3) The third type of question is political: How do you feel about fracking? Is global warming real? These questions usually lead to long conversations.

4) The final type of question seeks to understand who we are and why we created the booth: Who is coordinating this event?” Who is sponsoring this? When we share that we’re unsponsored and just having fun the response is usually something along the lines of, “This is very cool” or “Keep up the good work.”

So, if you happen to be in Tallahassee during the first Friday of any month, please stop by Railroad Square and our AaS booth. We’re always happy to say ‘hello’ and talk science. We also try to post ‘example questions’ each month to help prompt participation. So I welcome any accessible, general science questions you’ve heard as well.

Chemistry Twitterverse

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